Author: Thomas L. Friedman

ISBN: 0374292884

The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN:  Editor of Bookpleasures. CLICK TO VIEW  Norm Goldman's Reviews       

Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman’s latest book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, is no less ambitious than his previous works.

According to Friedman the world is flat and when you think of it in this way, many things make sense in a way they did not before.

To Friedman, the flattening of the world means that all centers of knowledge are connected on the planet and they are coming together in a single network.

Provided politics and terrorism do not hinder this phenomenon, this could lead to an amazing era of prosperity and innovation.

Moreover, according to the author, and if he is right, the flattening of the world will be remembered in the same way and importance as one of the fundamental world changes, as the Industrial Revolution or the rise of the nation-state.

 Friedman explores ten innovations, events and trends that he believes flattened the world. These events commenced with the opening of the Berlin Wall and followed by the day Netscape went public, work flow software, open-sourcing, outsourcing, offshoring, supply-chaining, insourcing, in-forming and the steroids.

All of these flatteners led to what Friedman terms a triple convergence working together in ways that create a new, flatter, global and level playing field.

Once the playing field became established, both businesses and individuals begin to adopt new habits, skills and new ways of doing business.

If you just look around you and witness what has happened in China, India and the former Soviet Empire, you notice that it is thanks to this new flat world that these countries are now able to compete directly with everyone else.

What is quite noteworthy, as the author points out, that although there has been a dot-com bust, it was ironically precisely this bust that helped India and created to a large extent outsourcing. This was principally due to the fact that the boom laid the cable that connected India to the world, and the bust created a situation where the cost of using it was virtually free. It also vastly increased the number of American enterprises that would want to use that fiber-optic cable to outsource knowledge work to India.

Moreover, as Friedman mentions, there is a coefficient of flatness, i.e. the fewer natural resources a country or company has, the more it will dig inside itself for innovations in order to survive.

Several examples are presented to back up this premise, such as Toshiba and UPS. I was surprised to learn that when you have a problem with your Toshiba computer, UPS picks it up and instead of sending it to the Toshiba shop for repair, the repair is effectuated on the UPS premises. This cuts down on the time factor, and customers can now have their computer returned the following day after pick-up. Incidentally, all of the repairmen and –women are all certified by Toshiba, and customer complaints are now considerably down.

 The remainder of this excellent book deals with Friedman’s perceptions pertaining to America and the flat world, insisting on the upgrading of science and engineering education, both essential if we are to avoid a crisis where America falls very much behind. The final chapters tie everything together concerning developing countries, companies and geopolitics in the flat world, looking at these important topics from various angles.

There is little doubt that Friedman has presented his readers with a significant contribution to an understanding of how the world works today and a reminder that the playing field is now level or as he calls it, flat. The final verdict, however, as to how the world will turn out no one knows for sure. I guess we will have to stay tuned.